


The Twain shall meet.

by TayBartlett9000



Category: British Royalty RPF, Historical RPF, The Favourite (2018)
Genre: Court, Engllaand, F/F, Lady - Freeform, Lesbian, Love, Princess - Freeform, Royalty, Seventeenth Century, firsting, frienndship, servant - Freeform, young Princess Anne, young Sarah Churchill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 02:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18437333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TayBartlett9000/pseuds/TayBartlett9000
Summary: It is 1675 and princess Anne is but ten years old. Her life as a lonely princess changes drastically upon the day that young Sarah Jennings comes to court. Though Anne is ten and Sarah  fifteen, princess Anne is already spellbound by Sarah, glad to  have someone to keep her company. Even in the days of 1675, the woman who would become Sarah Churchill  was to be Anne's favourite.This is my own take on how Anne Stuart and Sarah Churchill might have met at court.





	The Twain shall meet.

St James’s Palace, 1675.

 

Princess Anne was doing her upmost to hide her mounting frustration. Yet again she had managed to get every single one of the intricate steps wrong and Mary was scolding her, again. It was becoming   somewhat of a pattern for the ten year old  Anne these days.  The lord knew that she had never been a dancer. Mary was light footed and graceful as a swan skimming across the pond in st James’s park. But she was the ugly duckling, reduced  to flailing  around and trying to appear even half as agile. It didn’t work.

“You are going to have to try a little harder, Anne,” Mary said in a voice that Anne knew very well. Exasperation. That was the tone  that Mary  always used whenever she and Anne were in the same room. Turning to her younger sister, Mary offered one final  rebuke, as if Anne needed to be told yet again that she wasn’t good enough. “You do know that we shall soon be required to dance before the court. I trust that you will practice harder in the future.” Mary paused for a moment, obviously  waiting for Anne to say yes. When she was greeted with a mere nod in reply, Mary sighed and left the room, leaving Anne alone.

Princess Anne sat in one  of her favourite chairs beside the window, glad that Mary had vanished for the moment. When left alone, Anne could be herself.

Anne knew that she was a  disappointment. The lord knew that she had been told so  often enough,  often enough for the words to have been drilled into her head. She was not at all like  her sister Mary with her courtly ways and her ability to please   everyone around her. Anne   took no pleasure in discussing dresses or dancing and she found no interest in discussing the  handsome men about court. For Anne, animals and spending time with her maids was where pleasure truly lay. That and playing cards. ‘A most unsuitable persute for a royal princess.’ 

Anne Stuart cared not. She didn’t want to waste her time wearing out her fingers  at needle work or embroidery. And yet she knew that she must. The life of a princess was not one in which said princess could   do what she   wanted. A damned shame. That was what it had become. A damned shame.

The palace seemed eerily silent as Princess Anne sat there in the bright and airy room, wondering where everyone had disappeared off too. Anne remembered hearing word from the commoners outside these walls that  the life of a princess was  said to be one of glitter and splender with never a moment alone. But Anne could testify quite a different sinario. For her, life could sometimes be unbearably lonely, just as she was alone now.

A polite tapping on the door alerted Anne to the fact  that there was in fact someone else lerking around this wing of Saint James’s palace, and she raised her voice, bidding  whoever was standing on the other side of that door to enter. She kept her eyes upon the door, wondering whom wished to speak to her. Was it a  servant bringing food? Was it Mary wishing to  practice their dance  steps just one more time? Anne sat quietly as the door opened.

“Ah, your royal highness, I was looking forward to meeting you again.”

Prinncess Anne snapped to  attention, recognising that sweet, bell-like voice and melting a little inside. It had been  two years  since she had first heard that voice and seen the person to whom that voice belonged and again, as with the first time, that  voice seemed to Anne to be positively hypnotising.

Looking at the  owner of that beautiful voice,  Anne felt a deep blush creeping  across her face as she took in the angelic image of this young woman.

Oh how the woman had changed in the two years since they had last parted company. The features had softened into those of a goddess, though Anne had not seen such heavenly beauty in that face before, and she walked with easy grace. Anne thought privately that this woman’s grace and elligance could rival that of any woman at court, even her sister Mary.  The long golden hair was the same however,  as were the eyes that swept the room and  fixed upon Anne with bold confidence. That smile, as   before, was bright enough to illuminate the room and the young ten year old princess was drawn towards that slim   woman of fifteen.

“Sarah Jennings,” she  exclaimed, rising from her chair to greet her, wondering why she was  greeting this person as a friend rather than the stranger she  was. As she moved towards the young  golden haired lady, Anne noticed that Sarah did not bow to her as people were supposed to do. She stood before her,  eyes shining with strong willed good humour. In her mind, Princess Anne found herself not unpleased that this bold young woman had not adheared to court etiket. She could only smile at Sarah Jennings, knowing that she must look like  a fool. She couldn’t bring herself to care very much.

“I have come to be part of your court, your royal highness,” Sarah Jennings said happily,  CLEARLY DECIDING that the dum struck Princess Anne wasn’t going to ask her for the reason for her arrival.

 She stood before Anne, eyes never wavering from her face as she admired the princess from every  conceivable angle. She did not  look to be very strong, either physically or mentally. Even at the tender age of fifteen, Sarah was  more than capable of spotting subtle signs of frailty. She smiled at the princess who was looking up at her, seemingly slightly nervous and she felt herself warming in turn to the young neece of their king. She had been told upon leaving her family home that she was to  make friends with Princess Anne and at first she had expressed a desire to be as nothing more than a  lady in waiting to the younger Stuart Princess. But now she was standing here before the frail young girl,  Sarah was changing her mind. She had left  her home thinking that she would instead try to befriend the older  princess Mary, but she could now see the possible advantages that would come with befriending Anne instead of her much more graceful and courtly sister.

Anne Stuart was speaking now and Sarah Jennings turned her attention to the princess. “Well,” she was saying, “I will be glad to take you  into my household as a lady in waiting. Would this arrangement suit you?”

Princess Anne was watching Sarah with careful consideration, waiting for her reply. She felt hopeful. Sarah  Jennings was known throughout England to be a girl of much excitement and Anne hoped that Sarah would bless her own household with the fun  that she was known for.

Offering the princess a glittering smile, Sarah Jennings nodded. “That arrangement suits me very well indeed,”  she told Anne brightly. “My father sent me here hoping that I would  become your friend.” She chose to  omit the fact that her father had spoken to her for hours about the possible advantages to the Jennings family that would come  from Sarah’s  friendship with the younger Stuart princess. She decided instead to focus only on her wishes to become one of princess Anne’s women.

Anne was smiling. “I will be glad of that,” she said happily. “Welcome to the court of Saint James. I hope that we shal indeed become great friends. The lord knows that I need some. Perhaps he sent you to  me.”

“Perhaps,” Sarah agreed, her heart melting slightly upon hearing those words. Anne’s innocence was charming at no mistake. She rather liked that innocence.

As the two girls sat down together, neither could have forseen the future that would befall them purely due to this meeting. Princess Anne  chattered merrily with  Sarah Jennings, not knowing that the woman sitting at her side  would soon become more than a mere friend, more  than a lady in waiting and significantly more than a face at court. Anne Stuart wasn’t  to know that in years to come, Sarah Jennings would become more than her favourite, that Anne would come to depend upon  her guidance and emotional support. She also could not have known that the two would soon  be embroiled in a  love scandle that would take the country of England  by storm. There was no denying that the future was going to be interesting.


End file.
